Science Stories

In elite sport, progress is measured in tiny improvements. But for athletes who are not (yet) competing at Olympic level, sports technology can enable major leaps forward. At the University of Twente, Associate Professor Dennis Reidsma works with students and colleagues to explore how interactive systems are transforming sport and motor learning.

Ice skating at speeds exceeding 50 kilometres per hour. How do olympians achieve that top speed on the ice? The push-off is crucial, of course, but did you know that at Olympic speeds, approximately 80 per cent of the opposing force is air resistance? In this episode of Kees Study, I dive into the wind tunnel to discover how aerodynamics can make the difference between silver and gold.

Olympic speed skaters glide effortlessly over the ice. Figure skaters spin as if friction barely exists. Ice skating looks effortless, but for physicists, that is deeply strange. In fact, ice skating should not work at all.

No whining, just perform. For many athletes, that's a lesson they learn early on at their sports club. Standards like that travel with them, from youth teams to the Olympic podium. But they also have a downside: an increased risk of physical, psychological and sexual misconduct. The Winter Games show a glorious result. But how safe is the road to get there?

With the Olympic Games approaching, wearables are once again in the spotlight. Elite athletes measure everything: heart rate, sleep, recovery and stress. In some cases, this goes so far that sports federations step in, as recently happened with tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, who was no longer allowed to wear a wearable during the Australian Open. One thing is clear: data has become inseparable from elite sport. But what does all this mean for the average athlete, or for the average person in the Netherlands?